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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Hobo, post: 1550746, member: 11521&quot;]OK, like I suspected we were on different frequencies. I thought you were saying the obverse and reverse dies were <u>made</u> together and intended to be used as a pair. </p><p><br /></p><p>What you are talking about is how die pairings are identified (Obv A / Rev 1, Obv A / Rev 2, Obv B / Rev 2, Obv B / Rev 3, etc.). This is just a way to identify which pair of dies struck a particular coin. That does not mean the Mint specifically made those dies intending to pair them together in that manner. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the early years of the Mint dies were very expensive and took a lot of labor to make so the Mint used them as long as possible. They also used dies for a long time (several days if not weeks). At the end of the day the coin press operator would remove the dies, grease the up and put the in the cabinet. The next day he would take the dies out of the cabinet, clean off the grease and place them in the coining press. Sometimes he die not get the same dies as were used the previous day. Yesterday he may have been using Obv A and Rev 1 but today he just happened to pull out Obv B and Rev 1. That&#039;s a different pairing. </p><p><br /></p><p>Also, when a die broke or became unusable they often only replaced the broken die, not the other die of the pair. If Obv D and Rev 4 were paired together and the reverse die broke but the obverse die was still in good, usable condition the press operator would probably replace the reverse die (let&#039;s say it happened to be Rev 7) and leave the obverse die in the coin press. That would create a new pairing (Obv D / Rev 7). Not planned but it happened nonetheless. </p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry for the confusion.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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